


Inexorable

by Iridium (IridiumFlames)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future Fish, M/M, i honestly don't know what relationships will be in this apart from makoharu yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IridiumFlames/pseuds/Iridium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This particular net had been too close to the border to begin with. He should have known better. Now here he is, stuck on the coastline against some fairly jagged black rocks, and swimming isn’t solving his problem for once. </p><p>Future Fish AU based on <a href="http://kaffiaulait.tumblr.com/post/92317560448">this picture</a>; Haru saves Makoto from drowning, and forgets what exactly it means for him to drag a human out of the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For the Water

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to add a bit on the wording here: for the purposes of this fan fiction, "mer" refers to merpeople, who are partially fish in appearance but are an entirely separate species.
> 
> "Hakino," which is the mer word for humans, comes _very roughly_ from the Hawaiian words _haki_ , meaning to be broken, and _ino_ , meaning bad or ill-wishing. So badly translated, it means "broken bad state of existence," which is basically how merpeople see humans.  
> I use Hawaiian (please tell me if I should not) because apart from a HUGE variety of Oceanic dialects, they are the people most historically connected with the ocean; so I thought it fitting, and I didn't know if any other less well-known languages would have dictionaries I could actually find and/or use effectively. I enjoy etymology, a good bit
> 
> That's about it, it's shorter than I anticipated but I hope you enjoy!

He is caught. 

This particular net had been too close to the border to begin with. He should have known better. But when the nets are out over the ocean, they almost always had fish trapped in them, fish he can steal, and it was worth a try. All he’d wanted was breakfast. 

Now here he is, stuck on the coastline against some fairly jagged black rocks, and swimming isn’t solving his problem for once. After about five minutes of fruitless struggling, he realizes the tide is on its way out, revealing more rocks and herding him closer to the border. 

That sparks a narrow thread of worry, wending electric through his ribs, because everyone learns from the time they are children not to go near the border, where the ocean runs out. Hakino live on the other side, and they kill for fun. As solitary as he is, even he knows mer that have lost people to the poisoned water. And everyone’s got the shared memories, of countless families drowned in their own waters by trash the hakino left behind.

He twists around harder, trying to get at least his waist free of the net; somehow this manages to tangle his side fins deeper in it, and one of them ends up unpleasantly smashed next to a pointy piece of rock. With a click of disgust, he claws his way further up the boulder. This gets his torso out of the net, but also pulls him half-out of the water, and he takes a deep, coughing breath as his lungs reopen. He could breathe air, technically, but it didn’t mean he liked to be out of water. Mer had tails for a reason. Dark hair slicks into his eyes, and he flicks it to the side irritably, trying to get a clearer view of the net wrapped around his tail.

That’s when he hears them. He knows it’s them, even if he’s never seen them, because in the memories they always talk too loud. This is no exception. Looking up, he sees cliffs, dissolving down into the same boulders where he’s trapped, and on top of those is a… light. Maybe. It’s flickering upward, like the sunset on a choppy sea, and hakino are swarming around it, yelling frantically. 

He temporarily forgets the net in favor of curiosity, squinting at the spectacle with a frown. Some are spraying water on the light– which is oddly liquid itself– but all of them are wrapped in thick clothing except a few, who cluster at the edges of the entire scene. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the odd light scared them. But they couldn’t be scared of it, could they, the hakino who can kill anything? He decides that there’s probably just something they want inside, some pointless treasure that’s particularly hard to open, and turns back to his net. A singular yell rises, higher than the previous ones, and a hakino splits off and starts down the cliffs. 

He profoundly does not care, and figures out that he can untie small sections of the net if he starts higher up where it’s already frayed. After a few minutes of work, he’s even gotten his fins out, despite being jostled by the waves. He fiddles with the fin that had been smashed against the rock, spreading it delicately to make sure everything’s in order– and hears the yell again, horrifyingly close.

The thread of worry from earlier snaps open into a net of sheer terror, and he jerks up. 

A hakino is only a few body lengths away, staring directly at him. 

It doesn’t seem as heavily armored as the ones on the cliff but it’s menacing enough, with dark heavy shapes blocking out most of its body. It crawls forward with its broken bottom half, moving tentatively toward him, over the rocks, and he’s trapped. He’s trapped, and it’s getting closer. With the painful strength given by fear, he rips at the net, scraping the rock and ignoring how blunted his claws are getting. He has to get away, fast.

His tail fin is still tied tight in the bottom of the net and he looks up- he can see its eyes clearly now. It seems focused on the net, having noticed the frayed section further up. It’s closer.

It makes a rumbling noise- only half his body length from him now- and reaches for his arm.

He twists away as fast as possible _he can’t let it touch him_ – and something odd happens. It moves back. Carefully, it pulls both arms away, and then extends one hand toward not him, but the net, leaving the other tucked next to its body. Its eyes are wide and clear, and it’s not showing teeth, nonthreatening. 

This is a little confusing. In some corner of his mind, he flashes back to childhood, and hears his mother, giving him his first warnings about the hakino: “They almost look mer sometimes, with eyes like that.” He watches it settle one hand on his rock, a tense silence falling as he waits to see what it will do. The hakino starts rumbling again and starts to unravel the net higher up, where he can’t reach. It looks for all the world like it’s trying to help him, which just isn’t possible. But what else would this achieve, other than setting him free? 

Then, a sudden smack and spray of foam; the last traces of the outgoing tide crash over both of them, and the hakino’s tiny bit of balance is gone. It falls, heavy armor caught up by the ocean, and makes eye contact– right before its head meets the rock it was standing on moments ago. Almost in slow motion, he watches its eyes blank out as it sinks below the waterline, and then the waves that brought it down come back for him. 

He and the net are both rushed forward and down, and finally, he’s in the water. Folding himself double with some effort, he cuts away the accursed net from his tail fin. It takes longer than the few seconds it should have, with his newly dull claws, but eventually he can move again. He checks his tail; the top of his fin hurts something awful, but nothing he can’t swim on.

He’s still near the rocks, and sinking almost directly down in front of him is the hakino. It’s not nearly as scary in the water, where its eyes are empty and it can do nothing but fall. He watches it float past him, dragged by its clothing. Even the tide doesn’t move it much. 

It would be so easy to just leave it, to let it die in the water it was stupid enough to approach. It’s obviously not going to survive if he leaves it.

He could just leave it.

But it tried to help him.

He snaps his gills shut in irritation and swims toward it. 

Fine. Fine. He’ll just grab it and chuck it over the border, and then leave before he regrets this more. He just wanted breakfast, he thinks halfheartedly. 

In a few minutes he’s caught up to it, and with some effort digs his claws into its armor and hauls it upward. Soft armor, how weird. They break the surface a good distance from the border. Nowhere near a safe distance, but enough that he can poke his head up out of the waves, his hair blending with the dark water. There’s nobody around, although there’s some yelling up on the cliff- he’ll have to hurry. Sand grits into his hands as he heaves its body forward, pulling himself up after it.

His arms are busy holding himself up and his tail’s no good out of the water, and he’s not about to change anything over such a small annoyance. Still, he manages to push the hakino as far away from the border as possible, alternately shoving at its shoulders and crawling forward. He tries to ignore the crawling feeling behind his own shoulders as he drags it out, as the waves grow shallower and disappear. 

By the time he’s gotten far enough that the tide won’t just take it back again in a few hours, the hakino’s eyes are open, and it’s making vague sounds of life. As far as he cares, his part is done. He starts the equally annoying process of struggling back to the water; but then he remembers the deal.

They don’t take the hakino anymore, when they come into the ocean. They used to. It’s a very old tradition and they don’t even have tails, they knew the danger when they came out over the water. But people started thinking they looked a little too mer. Their eyes were too similar when the life struggled out of them, and didn’t they always try to communicate, at the end, didn’t that indicate sentience? So things gradually changed, and if they’re able to now, mers put them back on their land and leave. But as a reminder, they take one small thing, to remind them that they could’ve taken much more and been justified. For all that the hakino poisoned the oceans, they only take this instead of a life.

It’s not even taking, really, he thinks as he hauls himself back to the body, still sprawled on the beach. He drags one clawed finger along its neck, and his own shoulder, until they both bloom a thin line of red. It’s a gift.

He presses both cuts together, waiting for it to blend, and thinks they should be grateful, to be a little bit more mer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy flip 1k, this is the largest number of hits I've ever gotten in such a small amount of time; this chapter is mostly people prodding at Makoto and trying to get answers or healthcare information from him– but I assure you Haru is coming back soon!
> 
> No new words this chapter thankfully- I always feel pretentious when I just make words up even if they're etymologically sound

The hakino is watching with a faint troubled expression, but it won’t remember this. It– is it a male, or female or mix? Personally, he thinks his own colors are very respectable, sharp flicks of yellow and bright blue running down his sides. This one’s not very colorful if it is a male. Either way, it can hardly focus his eyes, and it’s making those rumbling noises again, but even those are slowed down and stuttering.

His skin is a good deal thicker than the hakino’s, and he’s already stopped bleeding. But he licks his hand anyway, so he can pat its neck with the tips of his fingers. 

He doesn’t have to. It’s something a mother soothing their child would do, and fairly coddling of him, especially with a hakino. But this one tried to help, with the net, and he appreciates the effort. It watches him, he watches it, and they both stare at each other. Caught. 

“Thank you,” he says, and then he hears hakino yelling on the cliff, much closer now, and that’s dangerous, so he flips himself back towards the border and after some struggling gets to safety in the water.

He finds a nice calm spot a good distance from the border and turns back to see if they’ve found it yet– and indeed, there is a small cluster of them around the spot he left, and a box with flashing lights on top. He watches as they huddle around and then shuffle his hakino into the box, borne atop a bright orange plank. They’re probably doctors, or at least the hakinos’ primitive version of doctors, but it’s interesting to watch either way. 

He stays floating there for a minute, before remembering that he was stealing mackerel, or trying to, and has not yet achieved his goal of getting breakfast. If he goes south, there are usually fish near that big patch of warm current, and maybe even a squid or two if he swims deep enough. He flicks himself back underwater, ignoring the small buzzing in the back of his mind. 

He’s done with the border.

\-------------

The world is very small, he notices. Although he can see a highway, speeding away from him through a metal-framed window, there should be a lot more world past its fuzzly borders. 

And then he blinks, and it hits him. More and more of his surroundings come into focus, and his head hurts, and he absentmindedly remembers that he’s not supposed to sleep in his contacts because now one of them is tilted weirdly– it’s lining up now, and the world bends back into the right shapes. A friendly-looking lady in scrubs and a jacket adjusts the IV that’s– attached to his arm, ok, that’s new, and Makoto is in the back of an ambulance. 

He’s still in his work clothes though, wet and covered by a shock blanket, and the last thing he remembers is trying to save that man in the water. And blue, yellow and blue stripes? This is all very confusing. He looks up at the EMT with at least five questions on his lips. 

“What happened?” That question seems like the best choice at the moment. 

“Oh good, you’re awake.” The lady snaps to attention, adjusting his blanket and starting questions of her own. 

“Tachibana-san, you lost consciousness for about half an hour, and may have some minor head trauma. We think you might have come close to drowning, and you’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, so we can check for any complications, okay?”

“Okay, thank you,” he gets out. It sounds routine, from what he knows of ambulance rides; it’s not uncommon for victims of fires to need medical assistance. Makoto doesn’t really feel like thinking about the whole “drowning” part. He’ll deal with that nest of worms later. But he needs to ask about the man in the water, did anyone save him?

“I need you to tell me how many fingers I’m holding up. Do they look in focus, or a little blurry?” She’s still asking him questions.

“Um, there’s two,” he hurriedly answers, “but ma’am, do you know if anyone rescued the man on the cliffs? I was trying to get to him before I blacked out.”

She gives him a look, more closed off than before. “I don’t know,” she says hesitantly, “But I’ll find out for you once we’re in the hospital, alright?” 

“That’ll be great! Thank you very much, ah–” 

“Inoue.” 

“Inoue-san.”

“You’re welcome. Now move your fingers for me, please, and then see if you can wiggle your toes.” He does so with little effort, and once it’s assured that he has no immediate problems, they start chatting about his family. He knows it’s mostly to keep him from going into shock, but it’s nice nonetheless, and he starts trying to take out his wallet pictures of his brother and sister before remembering he’s still in work clothes.

Makoto gets checked into the hospital for the first time, along with a scraped-up guy that he recognizes from the other team sent into the house fire. He’s still got a clean outline on his face from his respirator, and his hair appears to have been sent through a wind tunnel. “So, Captain’s gonna rip your head off,” he starts, leaning over to Makoto. 

“What? Why? Oh– no partner.” He’s not new anymore; he can’t believe he’d honestly forgotten one of the most basic rules.

“Yeah. I saw you heading to the cliffs, what happened there?”

“Someone fell, I think.”

“Oh, really?” The other man raises his eyebrows, more interested. 

“There was a guy on the rocks near the bottom, and I know, I know I should’ve looked for a partner but if I’d waited, the waves might’ve gotten him. And there’s no way I could go into the water like this,” he says, gesturing to his still sopping-wet uniform.

“Good thinking on your part. But I’m just saying, prepare for the storm, dude.” 

Makoto smiles and accepts his fate. “Thanks for the warning, at least.” 

Within a minute, their physician descends on them like a cheery hydra, along with his nurse. 

“Alright, fellas, you did your part of the lifesaving, now it’s my turn!” They get separated into individual exam rooms, and Makoto is poked and scanned and doused in sterilizing alcohol until cuts that he didn’t even realize he’d gotten are securely bandaged up.

With a final thumbs-up, “Sasabe-san” pronounces him “good to go!” and lets a slightly overwhelmed Makoto out of the room. At least the nurse found him some dry clothes, even if they were a little small. 

The other firefighter, whose name ended up being Nakayama, suffered a sprained ankle, but nothing worse, and after checking out at the front desk, they’re allowed to leave. But a hand on his shoulder stops Makoto’s path toward a well-deserved nap.

It’s one of the nurses. “Actually, before you leave, Tachibana-san– the police are here, and they’d like to talk with you.” 

“What?” he splutters out, and starts scouring his mind for every vaguely illegal thing he’s ever done. One time in high school he downloaded a ringtone for Ran, is he going to jail? Is it a life sentence? Before he can panic further, the nurse pats his shoulder reassuringly.

“You’re not in any trouble, don’t worry. It’s about that cut on your neck, I think,” and only now does Makoto notice the bandages above his collarbone. “They’re in Exam Room 129, right over there.”

“Thank you,” he calls back to the nurse as he heads off toward an empty examination room; or it would be empty, if there weren’t two police officers in it, trying hard to look like they belong. The taller one is taller than even him, and has dark hair paired with unusually light blue eyes. But the shorter one- wait, he knows him, if that messy red ponytail has stayed the same all these years. Makoto squints at him and then it snaps into place. 

“Rin! Matsuoka Rin?” Rin squints right back suspiciously, until his face opens wide and grinning with recognition. He crashes into Makoto with a hug, pushing at his shoulder with hardly any force.

“Makoto! Oy, how’ve you been, man? I haven’t seen you in forever– I guess you’re a fireman now, huh?”

“Yeah, part time,” he laughs, glad to be remembered. “I work at a cafe the rest of the time, actually.” 

“Cool, cool. Nice to see you, I gotta get your number so we can talk again.” Rin’s eyes are just as bright and animated as Makoto remembers, and he matured nicely; he’s only a few centimeters shorter than Makoto. 

“But that’s not the reason we’re here, right?” He gestures to his partner, who has a clipboard ready, and steps aside to let him talk. 

“I’m Yamazaki Sousuke,” he starts, fixing Makoto with an intense stare. “The EMTs noticed when they were bringing you in that you had a cut on your neck, just above the collarbone. Could you tell us where you were when you got this injury?” He stops to look over his clipboard before handing it to Rin. “Apart from the obvious fire,” he stops to roll his eyes, “we don’t know what happened until the EMTs found you.” 

Makoto winces. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember much. I was trying to save someone caught on the rocks– the call we got was on a cliff, it drops into the ocean, and they probably fell trying to get away from the fire.” He stops, confused. 

“Actually, the nurses never told me if they found him or not. I’ll have to go ask...” he says offhandedly, before trailing off quietly. Yamazaki is glaring at him with badly hidden impatience, until Rin kicks him in the shin. 

“Knock it off with the hardass face. We’re asking him to remember stuff he was probably unconscious for anyway.” 

His eyes soften marginally, and he turns back to Makoto with a slight smile. “Do you remember anything else?” 

“Well, I was reaching for that man’s hand, the guy stuck on the rocks, and I slipped. I think I hit my head. They seemed pretty concerned about a concussion when they were looking me over, at least, but– that’s it.” He pores through his memories of the past day, trying to get something out of nothing. Except– 

“There was someone– whoever pulled me out of the water had blue eyes, if that helps. Not like yours, Yamazaki-san, a bit darker. That’s all I can remember.” 

Yamazaki grabs the clipboard back from Rin, who had been writing everything down, and looks him down one last time. His eyes are searching, laying Makoto neatly open, and he can’t help feeling that Yamazaki knows what he’s looking for. 

“Alright, tell us if you remember anything more. You can call our department at this number here.” He pauses to let Makoto hastily punch it into his phone, and then hands him the clipboard, smoothly flipping it to a blank page of note paper. “Good. Now write your phone number here so we know where to reach you.” 

The second Makoto’s finished scribbling it down, his face relaxes about ten notches. “And NOW I’m off duty. Nice to meet you, Tachibana. Clearly you’ve already met this loser.” 

“I’m not a loser! I’m hardcore as hell. And gimme your phone Makoto, I need to text myself.” He hands it over with a fond smile– Rin’s just like he remembers– and waits as Rin eagerly mash in his number. “I meant it when I said I’m talking to you again.” 

“I’m sure we’ve got a lot to catch up on, you being a police officer and everything.” He tries to gently slide out of the conversation. Not that Rin’s boring by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s tired. “It was great seeing you again, Rin, really.” 

“Oh yeah- you were heading home! Go on then, I’ll text you later.” Rin waves him off with a smile and Makoto leaves for his apartment at last, followed by one last word from Yamazaki. 

“If you remember anything- that number, alright?” 

“Yes, sir!” he calls back dutifully, and turns out the hospital doors, already looking for the nearest train station. He was going to do something…

\-------------

Rin heads into the exam room again, calling to one of the nurses. “We’ll just be a minute, gotta write a couple more things down,” and the easy smile he’d worn during Makoto’s interview slides off his face as he turns toward Sousuke. 

“It’s the same, isn’t it.”

“Same as the last three since we started. One deep cut right above the clavicle, already healed with no memory of why it’s there. All potential drowning victims that shouldn’t have lived.” 

“It’s not just our precinct though. It’s nationwide.” Rin takes off his hat to re-tie his ponytail. “Remember Yamada a couple years back?”

“It’s probably other countries too, if those Australians we talked to actually had something concrete. But if they did, it’s been happening what, 50 years? It had to be more than just “a fall off the cliffs.”” 

“I know that.” Rin gestures at him, his eyes rounding sarcastically. “But– c’mon, this is Makoto. I know you don’t know him, but he’s absolute shit at lying. There had to be someone on those rocks.”

Sousuke blinks at him slowly. “Rin, you read the report. None of the house’s residents even went missing during the call. No nearby civilians, nothing.”

Nobody was on the cliffs to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please critique my writing and also I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> please give me critique, it helps me get better at writing and in return you get more and better writing, this is a win-win


End file.
